What is a story? · 2:51am Jan 24th, 2016
What is a story?
According to Google:
1. an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment.
2. an account of past events in someone’s life or in the evolution of something.
Which is fine as far as it goes, but what does it mean?
It's just an object, doesn't mean what you think.
Source
Just recently, I uploaded a story which, action-wise, was nothing more than two girls talking. That bothered some people enough to comment.
But what I'm really confused about is why this is even a story? It's more like a "intermission" chapter detailing a slice of life moment. What was the point of making this?
But my main gripe is that this really did not feel like a story. This felt more like a conversation put to print instead.
Well, that's fair; different people like different things. What sticks out in my mind, though, was the implied statement that this is not a story.
Well, what is a story?
Stephen King said something about that in one of his author's notes, I think. Something about how the ordinary man working all day and then going home to his family was as much of a story as anything else. I'm working from memory, so I'm probably misquoting. But I think it was along those lines.
Now, I'm not saying that you have to find any particular thing interesting. "I didn't like that story," is a perfectly valid complaint. I'm not going to stand here and tell you that you have to like something; what you find interesting to read is your prerogative, after all. And I'm not going to complain if you start to read something because you thought you'd be interested in it, but later decided you weren't.
I'm not even going to debate whether a story is good or not. Once again, that's personal. I learned in my senior seminar that the whole of English literature could be summed up by William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens. I don't think that's right, despite what my professor said.
Story is a big word, and it encompasses a lot of territory. I don't think that anyone can say with certainty that something is not a story, regardless of whether it's about something mundane or something extraordinary. I can ignore genre tags, I can dislike a story because of how it's written or because it just doesn't do anything for me, but I can't say that it's not a story. I think that if it invokes any image in the reader's mind whatsoever, it's a story, from the zero word Canonical Mute Vinyl Scratch Breaks Up With Fanon Mutavia to the 1,865,385 word (so far) Diaries of a Madman.
I'm sure Bad Horse will have something to say on the topic—maybe he already has—but I think I'll leave it open to you guys.
What is a story?
I'd say a story is the "account" of an event or a series of event. It can have a setting, have actor, but to make this a story, there most be an action. The rest just define the type, the lenght, the quality and so on.
A story is whatever the writer wants it to be. As long as it communicates something to the reader in a coherent manner for the purpose of entertainment or conveying an idea or moral, then it's a story.
Even if it's just two girls talking.
A story is the retelling of something that happened. Whether it happened in this reality or another is irrelevant.
For me, something needs to happen for it to be a story. Two girls having a conversation fits that bill in my opinion.
So a man pooping counts as story?
It's said the element of story run as such: Character, problem, raising the stakes, solution. At it's most basic form every story has this. Now the character might be a doll, Pop Francis or hell the good Admiral himself but they are constant. Now this is a rough generalization of course and you ask what is a story? A story, in my opinion at least, is something that makes us feel something that speaks to us. In the case of your 'Canonical Mute' it invokes emotion: amusement, awe, anger, envy but it does make us feel and to an extent care. All of us are in a way made of stories. You could argue that's the human soul. Our stories. What else are we made of? What other being on this earth other then a human shares experiences real and imagined with others in an intriguing tone? To say conversation is not a story (He's rambling again I do apologize) as you pointed out is incorrect. Most plays are based around and in some cases solely on conversations. Everyday conversation is a story in of itself. An inciting incident, development of each character a resolution all occur sometimes in the space of a few or even no words. (Perhaps we should get back to the point?) To sum up I would argue stories surround and penetrate us and take more forms then even you, I or anyone else for that matter can comprehend. Hell even this blog is a story. Because it made me feel something and more then that made me act on it.
T (FN)
3708464 Oh I forgot! Here's a fun story!
"For sale: Baby Shoes, never worn."
T
Call me a purist, but if we aren't willing to put at least a few definitional constraints around the concept of a story, then we end up in a situation where anything can be a story, and thus, nothing is a story.
Take this with a grain of salt, coming from the author of Lost Cities, but I believe stories need to include some sort of narrative progression that involves some sort of change, even if that change is circular and results in a beginning that is little different than the end. This change can be found in characters or the world state or whatever, but there's some kind of change described by the work.
Does Social Bathing meet that standard? I'm not sure, but it feels like it has a fairly weak claim, and if I were judging it in the Write-off, I might judge it harshly for that reason.
But I did enjoy it greatly, and I can't wait for the sequel :3
3708381
But what type of action? Can there be a story where nothing of significance happens, or where the characters don't learn anything? Where they don't become better people (or ponies)?
3708382
Can it? Once it's out in public, it's not in the writer's hands anymore. I can't control what my readers make of my story, no matter how good (or bad) my intentions.
Okay, that's a fair statement. Broad . . . but perfectly reasonable.
3708393
I like this philosophy.
3708394
Something needs to happen. That's reasonable. But could nothing happen?
Does that count as a story?
I don't know that my opinion is necessarily going to be valid - after all, I've frequently opined that, "I couldn't write my way out of a paper bag..." BUT, for what little it's worth, I'm going to offer opinions (with the crude caveat that opinions are like plotholets- everypony's got at least one, and all of them are full of horseapples
).
I never studied Creative Writing, per se, but I recall something called a vignette - a bit of time that paints a scene. It does not have to advance a larger narrative. A story describes actions...
You do not have to have a story to paint a picture. And I have seen a helluva lot of pictures painted and tagged "Slice of Life" that didn't tell a story. I fail to see the problem here...
In the case at hand, I read the posting I believe you referred to, and I personally reject the complaints, and politely suggest that the complaints are, as a lawyer would say, "baseless and without merit..." (Or in the inelegant vernacular of the former Ranger I served with while I was a sworn booking copper, "$&#* 'em and feed 'em fish heads...")
Speaking for myself, I enjoyed the character interaction and the world-building in that vignette. If others object on the grounds that it's not a "story", I wouldn't get too wound up about it. illegitimi nil carborundum, brother...
[edited a couple of times for grammar, et cetera...]
A story is another word for a floor in a building.
3708432
Sure, why wouldn't it? Not sure it's something I'd want to read, but I don't think that makes it any less of a story.
3708464
Does it?
Yesterday I went grocery shopping, and while I was at the grocery store, I decided I wanted an omelette for breakfast. When i got home, i discovered that I'd forgotten to buy eggs.
Is that a story? Or does it only become one when I say that this morning, I still wanted an omelette, so I bought eggs, and then when I was driving home, I decided I didn't want an omelette after all and made a sandwich instead.
What if it doesn't, though? Does it lose its 'storyness' then? I got bored of Moby Dick and stopped reading it; did it cease to be a story at that point?
Yes, I think that's true.
To nitpick just a little here, I didn't say that, some of my readers did.
I think that a conversation is a story, and you're 100% spot-on with dialogue between characters telling its own story. To give an example, the original Twelve Angry Men is one of my favorite films, and it can honestly be said that there is no action whatsoever in the entire movie.
Hmm, that's interesting. I honestly wouldn't have thought of it as such, but I can see where you're coming from.
In the broadest possible strokes, the blog isn't a story, because it doesn't have any of the elements which make up a story. It, on the face of things, isn't an 'account.' And yet . . . it is. It's an account of my experience with comments on one of my stories, and an account of my thoughts on the subject. Letters and diaries can be considered stories, after all.
Apparently, something which has *no* dialogue can also be considered not a story, or at least the Writeoff story Published in the Stars was criticized as such for by one of my favorite authors.
3708492
Is that a problem?
Sure, I can see it in the sense of publishing. The moderators of this site, the editors of a newspaper, or a publishing house have every right to determine what they consider to be a 'story.' That's fine; I have no problem with that. It's their name and their money on the tin, and they can pick and choose. But just because it wouldn't pass FimFic's standards, for example, doesn't by definition make it not a story.
That's interesting. I can see that as being a general standard in fiction--there's some sort of progress that the protagonist makes over the course of the story--but is that really needed? What's wrong with a simple vignette? I could be biased; it's possible half of my fics have the SoL tag. Do those stories need to have some sort of change in them, or can they just be about a pony having an ordinary day, during an ordinary thing? Is Twilight's life more story-worthy than Ambrosia's?
But that's more a question about merit, and your definition of what you feel makes a good story, or what makes a story suitable to win a contest or not. I'm not arguing that--that's subjective.
No promises there. It was one of those things that just came into my head and I simply had to write it.
3708521
Yeah, a vignette is kind of like a still life. That's also what a lot of Slice of Life fics are, a brief insight into a character or several, where nothing much might happen. But I don't think that makes it less of a story.
Incidentally, I don't think I ever wound up taking a creative writing class. I think I was afraid that 'the man' would try and tell me what to do.
Well, I agree. Obviously. I have no argument for someone who states that they didn't like the story, or complains about the way I told it, but I think it doesn't lose any of its 'storyness' just because it isn't liked.
It's the 'not a story' part that irks me. As for the rest . . . well, I've gotten my fair share of complaints on stories, and even a couple of forum threads on why I have done a Very Bad Thing (the best was for Mares of Diomedes), and that's all water off a duck's back.
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3708575
I could see the lack of dialogue making a story less interesting, but that doesn't make it less of a story. Not in my opinion, anyway.
I can't think of any I've done that way, but it's possible I'm forgetting that I've done that before.Air Accident Brief--Midair Collision Northwest of Ponyville
3708624 Yeah, well... the Ranger's advice seems appropriate about those guys complaining about "The Mares of Diomedes" They might have never seen an episode of "The Twilight Zone", and certainly never understood what Serling was trying to do in "The Twilight Zone" ... As to the case at hand, I'm tempted to apply the Ranger;s advice to them, as well
Fuck 'em and feed 'em fish heads. Drive on,..
The "not a story" comment brought me up short, as well. It didn't seem out of the ordinary for slice-of-life on Fimfiction.
3708635
You can always do dialog for the Accident Brief one with a new chapter purporting to be the interview from the accident docket.
Sometimes, those are as interesting as the report or brief, though they're obviously a lot less clinical.
Hearing the "Supervisor" try to tap-dance around not having anticollision lights would be fascinating.
A story, imo, (in terms of fiction for entertainment) is the telling of events for some kind of purpose.
Now, Admiral, I haven't read this story of yours, so I'm not judging it. I'm just saying this in general.
It can be any kind of purpose, for us it's usually for entertainment. Story is a big broad word, and entertainment is even broader. People can be entertained in all sorts of manners. They have to be interested in the story, and that usually, but not always, comes from some kind of emotional or intellectual investment, however small.
Let me tell a story:
Very well, but who cares? There's nothing interesting or emotional there, there's no point. A lot of people have full work days.
Now we have a point. Actually, we have characters, an event, a timeline, and a reason. It has a point, to convey the idea of exactly what I was doing all day, and why. (True story btw.)
Stories don't have to have events, per se. But there should be some kind of point to it. If it's two people talking, I imagine the conversation itself should be making some kind of point.
Right?
Things happen to characters, and they have a chance to learn from it.
That's my personal, bare-bones answer to the question "what does it take for something to be a story?". I'm quite pleased with it.
Does its have a plot? If yes, then it is a story.
Stories
I regard a story as a blog post which is over 1000 word and meets the fimfiction rules.
Whenever I read a "that's not a story" comment (usually on writeoff threads), I am always tempted to reply "that's not a review". If you don't like a 'story', that fine, but to dismiss it in such a way just seems arrogant and lazy.
I suppose we are talking about stories with a limitation on the medium we are using to tell them, because otherwise a photo can tell a story, a sculpture can tell a story and a very carefully arranged meal can tell a story and none of those necessarily have characters or other classical elements most people expect.
My own criteria is quite lax, and if there is some kind of narration going on (even if it is a description of still scene) that tries to convey an idea then it classifies at a story. Someone already quoted the famous six word Hemingway story. For me that is a prefect example of story, it tells us something, it builds a narration and it conveys and idea.
3708494 Why not? It is still a story.
Well. I would say you always learn something, however insignifiant it is.
But as far as big (or relatively big) changes are concerned, it can be a story about a character not learning. It can be a descent, a degression.
In the end, an action is a story, no action is a description. A description can be integrated into a story, but alone it is not a story.
3708683
Well, I wasn't figuring that Mares would be a particularly well-liked story, and given the subject matter . . . actually, given the very strong reactions to the story, I think I accomplished what I meant to.
3708702
Maybe those people don't normally read SoL. I figure by now I ought to know what I'm doing with them
Although it's funny; I've got another incomplete story that's stalled because I haven't quite figured out what the point is meant to be.
I could do that. I could really re-tell it as the whole story, from everybody's point of view. I hadn't considered that when I wrote it, but it would be an interesting character piece.
3708856
I think that's a perfectly legitimate definition.
I think the entertainment end is more on the reader, rather than the writer. What I like reading may not be what you like reading--what interests me might not interest you. For example, I read NTSB accident reports for entertainment, but I'd imagine that most people don't. Which comes from my own intellectual interest. I guess it could be argued that they're factual morality tales . . . but they're not really intended to be best-sellers.
I suppose it comes down to what you mean about making a point. One one hand, this story could have been considered nothing more than a headcanon dump, more suitable as a topic on a forum rather than a story of its own. On the other hand, through the conversation and the actions of the characters, we learned from them about their world, their values and morals, and the difficulties the faced in life. We didn't see most of that; rather, we had it related through the character's eyes.
3708873
Oh, I like this. Very simple and to the point.
3708889
That strikes me as a bit of circular logic, since a plot is nothing more than the events which make up a story. In its broadest terms, one could argue that nearly anything therefore qualifies. Now, I'm not sure that's wrong: "Dan ran to catch the bus but tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and tore his jeans," has a plot--events--and it does tell a story. I suspect that you could tear down nearly any sentence which has a noun and a verb in a similar manner, and you might not even need that many words . . . No! also tells a bit of a story.
3708904
"Stories," as you linked, really only says what's prohibited, but it doesn't otherwise qualify the concept of a "story," just what it needs to have or not have in order to be considered for publication on FimFiction.
This blog post isn't, but I could pad it out to a thousand words. I could cover the 'about the MLP universe' by having Twilight say what i just said up there . . . my gut says that this wouldn't count as a story, but I can't honestly say why not. Interestingly--and this doesn't really prove anything one way or another--but this blog post currently has the same number of views as my least-viewed story.
I think I would. My reply to the comments was "What is a story?" I have not gotten a reply.
3709053
Yes; I am only considering the written word here. Art and objects (to just cover everything which isn't widely considered 'art') are a whole 'nother ball of wax. To give an example, I once wrote a story about an old DeSoto, inspired by the rusting hulk of a Ford Ranger that came with my house. [Admittedly, it's still a written-word story rather than a photograph or art installation or whatever, but one could consider it as a stream-of-consciousness response to art.]
So to dig down to the simplest concept, it's essentially a series of words which attempts to convey an idea. Piers Anthony once published three short stories in fifty words or less, and they all accomplished that.
3709195
I guess if nothing else, in that case you (the reader) would learn something, even if the character apparently didn't. Sort of like Applejack learning she was right all along.
That being the case, my story The Sex Shop is not a story.
3709313
Almost, it needs something else. A explanation of a mathematical theorem communicates an idea with words, but it is not a story. And now I see that I'm having a great difficulty in conveying what separates a story from not a story for me.
3709326
It's kind of like the classic 'definition' of pornography. I can't say what it is, but I'll know it when I see it.
3709300
That's exactly my point. The only legitimate way in which something is 'not a story' is if it fails to meet the fimfiction rules. And that is just a local definition valid for this site.
Of course when someone says something is 'not a story' what they probably mean is something like: 'I don't like it', 'It doesn't have a clear plot', 'It doesn't match what my schoolteacher said a story is'.
3709329
If pressed for a slightly better definition I would say intentionality is a requirement, but that is a shitty criteria. So I will probably go with "a story is something that communicates an idea with words and is not: a factual explanation or account of a concept or a happening where ambiguity, if it exists, is clearly pointed out." This means that a lot of news reports get classified as stories for me. I'm also aware that this definition is broad enough as to be useless.
A story is exactly what Google defined it as: a series of events, recounted. Anything else is an expansion of the central concept.
This reminds me of the first chapter of Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics where he tries to define 'comics'.
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
3709285
Oh, then like I said, an intellectual investment.
"Story" is a concept, just like "chair" is a concept
there's a definition, but that is only an approximation of what it "is"
seriously-- have you seen all the different things we call chairs?
https://www.google.com/search?q=chair&client=ubuntu&espv=2&biw=1364&bih=679&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiypsihy8PKAhWC8j4KHf5BCkgQsAQIGw
Like any form of art, it can be deconstructed until it is even less than just two people talking with each other (or just a stick with a board on top)
how it is received will be completely dependent on two things:
-how well it is executed
-the openness of the audience
3709315
Ah maybe. I wouldn't know anyway since I haven't read it, but I'll take your word for it.
3708506
I would argue that there is an action taking place: the rock is existing. Admittedly, I am using very broad definitions of "happen" and "action".
3708624 Man, those dudes are seriously salty about fictional ponies eating dudes.
This isn't all that useful as a useful working definition, but I've always considered the story as the combination of what is on the page mixing with what is oin the readers head. Which is why trying to define story is doomed to be subjective because at the core of it, half of every story is completely subjective based on each reader. If two people read the same book, but enjoy completely different stories base on thier interpretations of the characters and/or events, how do you define the story on the page?
However, when I comment in a review that a piece doesn't feel like a full stoiry I usually mean something a bit more specific. I tend to use it to mean that the story feels incomplete. Either it is missing something from itself, or it feels like a part of a bigger story. I suspect this is what most people !ean when they make that comment.
3709369
So I suppose a perfectly valid comeback would be "Meeeester says it is a story."
Which, in many cases, can probably be shortened to "I didn't understand it."
3709403
It's a problem, in't it? With each comment I read, I become less certain of what a story actually is. In part, it's probably because a thing like a story has as much to do with the reader of that story than anything else.
3709501
So in that regard, Air Accident Brief is really the ultimate story, because it's pared down to only the central content, with none of the sundry fluff like dialogue, characters, emotions, and all that.
3710208
I read that way back when . . . I'm not sure when, to be honest, but it was a while ago. Anyhow, yeah, turns out broad definitions are rather tricky, especially for vague concepts like 'story.'
3710345
Well, it's further complicated by the thing having purpose. To quote Objects in Space, "So is it still her room when it's empty?
Does the room, the thing, have purpose?" If I sit on a log, it's a chair. Or a stick with a board on top, or whatever. So the story isn't anything unless there's a reader reading it; it's just meaningless words on a page otherwise. Or electrons on a screen, or what have you.
So maybe a story is an agreement between the reader and writer? Or the teller and the listener?
3710370
It's a description of a business, no more. There are no named characters, and there is no dialogue.
3710792
Well, we start to get into fuzzy areas with 'character,' as well. There are stories where the setting is as much of a character as any human (or pony); objects that are characters, and so on.
I should write a story about the rock. From the rock's perspective. After all, if someone can ship the Boutique and the Treebrary, anything is possible. Anything is a story.
3711242
That's probably a good thing. I mean, I set out to write a good dark story, and it got its own 'nuke it from orbit' thread.
3712797
No, I think that's one of the only valid definitions. In written fiction, it's more about the reader than the writer, I think. My English professor thought Wallace Stevens was a great poet; I don't agree, because his poems don't do anything for me.
It probably is. But a full story is specific . . . or 'it feels like something's missing,' or something like that. Just 'it's not a story'--what does that mean? Besides that I'm overthinking this.
3714554
Hey, somebody wrote a story from the perspective of Equestria's sun, and it was beautiful. If you wrote a story from the perspective of a rock, I'd definitely read it (eventually).
Well, I'll add that to my RiL.
3714470
I would say that purpose is set by the creator. The creator calls it a story, therefore it is a story. Whether it's a good story or not is the subjective part.
If a carpenter makes something that fits (however loosely) the definition of a chair, then it is.
The usefulness of it will determine if it's a good chair.
I remember a news report of an art exhibit being thrown away because the janitor thought it was just a pile of trash -- I hate to admit it, but I have to say that, while I see it as a prime example of stupidity in art and should have been thrown out like the trash it was, It was nonetheless art.
Also, if I leave my daughter's room set aside for her after she moves out, I have every right to continue to call it her room -- even if she never uses it again.
3714721
I have now read it, and it is wonderful. The idea of pony magic being music is perfect. I need to fit that into something.